My first cousin once removed died recently. Though he only lived a few dozen miles away, I had not seen much of him or his family in recent years. His funeral service was Monday.
The passing was a time to express sympathies, but the publishing of photos and obituaries combined with the multitude of introductions and conversations doubled as a time to fill in the blanks on the family tree.
That's sort of the dark side of genealogical research. Should I feel guilty?
I populated Doug's family tree with photos and dates thanks to some Facebook postings in his honor. I never had any access until then. Now, I've got photos with six relatives on the tree that I didn't have before. I found out when one particular family photo was taken too.
I overhead Dick mention his 40th Wedding Anniversary recently. Check. Had that one already.
I was confused about when Uncle Jim got remarried. I'm zeroing in on that one now.
What was one of Doug's daughter-in-law's maiden name? Got that too.
When were my second cousins born? Got some of those.
Again, should I feel guilty? I guess I won't as long as I share what I learned with my kids so it never gets forgotten.
Don't feel guilty. We all get busy with our own kids and time just seems to fly by.
ReplyDeleteI emailed you a descendant report for Uncle Jim's family. Some of the data you need is on the report. Let me know if I have any errors. It is easy to type in information incorrectly so we need to keep each other honest.